Myanmar's Junta Plans to Destroy Armed Opposition in Three Months

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

After commanding commanders and all forces to exterminate People's Defense Forces (PDFs), guerrilla-style resistance groups functioning locally across the country, Myanmar's military rulers are certain they can wipe out armed civilian opposition in three months.

Vice Senior General Soe Win, the junta's second most powerful person, issued an order last month to "identify and take action against the rebels and PDF promptly" and "arrest all the people from their hideouts in communities."

 

The order affects Yangon, Sagaing, and Magwe regions, as well as Chin and Kayah states, where the junta's troops have suffered considerable fatalities as a result of months of hit-and-run raids and ambushes by PDFs.

Following the February coup, the Myanmar state has struggled to quell civilian dissent provoked by the army's brutal crackdowns on anti-junta protestors.
At the same time, the army has been fighting some ethnic armed groups along the Chinese border who reject the coup and back the PDFs, causing China to be concerned about border instability.

 

After an artillery shell and gunfire from Myanmar struck the Chinese border town of Wanding in Yunnan Province on two occasions in August, Chinese authorities wrote a complaint letter to the Myanmar military.
In northern Shan State, the incidents occurred amid severe combat between regime troops and ethnic armed groups.

 

Chinese authorities expressed their deep worry over the incidents in the letter, calling them as violations of the China-Myanmar border accord.
China also warned the regime that if stray gunfire and artillery fell in Chinese territory again, it would "take appropriate action," citing the harm to the lives and property of Chinese citizens in border areas.

 

According to informed sources in Naypyitaw, the Myanmar regime has assured Chinese border security officials that the fighting will not disrupt border stability, stating that the military campaign against the PDFs will take place only in the country's interior, not along the border, and that civilian resistance will be wiped out in three months.
In other words, for the time being, the regime is more likely to focus on civilian resistance fighters than ethnic armed organisations.

 

With the rainy season drawing to a close, the dictatorship has deployed thousands of troops in Chin State, as well as the Sagaing and Magwe districts of upper Myanmar, since last month.
The regime appears committed to sweep the territories in three months, as it promised China, with pledges of border stability and increased force mobilisation upcountry.

Simultaneously, combat has erupted on the ground almost every day.

The regime launched an offensive on Thantlang in Chin State on Friday, where the Chinland Defense Force (CDF) and local PDFs are operating.
The hill village was shelled by the Junta, resulting in a fire that destroyed at least 160 of the town's 2,000 dwellings.
The junta blamed the fire on local PDFs.

 

The United States has condemned Myanmar's junta's heinous use of violence in Chin State and demanded immediate international action to hold the Myanmar military accountable.

 

In a press statement, US State Department spokesman Ned Price stated that the military regime's savage acts against individuals, their homes, and places of religion demonstrate the junta's total contempt for civilian lives and wellbeing.

The Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta'ang National Liberation Army, and Arakan Army all spoke out against the junta's artillery strikes on Thantlang this week.

 

Salai Issac Khen, a former Chin State municipal minister in the deposed civilian National League for Democracy government, denounced the military's shelling of Thantlang, stating the regime should be held accountable.

Efforts by the Junta to apprehend PDF leaders have stepped up, with numerous persons apprehended in Yangon.